Tag Archives: World Zionist Organization

“Some of these conversations may get a little unpleasant. But you know what, we’re in a war. We’re clearly going into, I think, a major shooting war in the Middle East again.” — Steve Bannon (Nov 2015) 1

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A few background notes on Bannon-Trump and Israel

As Karl Rove was to Bush jnr, so Steve Bannon is the so-called “brains behind Trump”. A former navy officer and a vice president of Goldman Sachs, Bannon went on to achieve his greatest notoriety (to date) as executive chairman of ‘alt-right’ sound cannon Breitbart News, “a website that has pushed racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic material” 2, and whose founder Andrew Breitbart referred to him affectionately as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Tea Party movement.

Yet notwithstanding Bannon’s more or less open advocacy for white supremacy in the US, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) was quick to invite White House chief strategist-in-waiting to their annual gala on November 20th. Here is ZOA Director Liz Berney making no apologies:

The previous embedded video was taken down so here’s an alternative upload:

As Mondoweiss explains:

[T]he fact that the ZOA and other reactionary Zionist organizations, political figures and billionaires would support Trump, is not a surprise. What is surprising is that organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Community Relations Council, groups that constantly target Arab, Muslim, Black, Chicano and other progressive organizations who criticize Israel and groups that frequently equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, would take issue with the ZOA’s support for Trump.

Zionism and Israel rely on antisemitism to justify blatant colonization of Palestine, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, support for anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism, collaboration in US wars, attacks on anti-racist organizations in the United States, training of repressive police and military forces and an economy that relies heavily on surveillance and weapons trade. So, its natural allies are, reactionary, racist, repressive governments, elected officials, regimes, movements, religious and political organizations and people of wealth.

And, the ZOA’s validation of Bannon on Sunday night confirms what Palestinians and other anti-Zionists, including anti-Zionist Jews, have always known: Zionism does not equal Jewish, rather it is rooted in antisemitism; support for Israel does not reflect a commitment to the humanity of Jewish people; Zionism is racist and to be anti-racist one has to be anti-Zionist. 3

Click here to read the full article entitled “Zionists embrace of Trump and Bannon is no surprise”.

For a fuller overview of Bannon’s seamy past, including the graphic details of the accusations made by his second wife Mary Louise Piccard of domestic abuse, I also recommend this concise exposé by independent journalist Abby Martin (although I do feel uncomfortable about Martin’s obfuscations in a defence of ‘globalism’):

While reports on Trump’s ban emphasize that these are Muslim majority countries, analysts seem to have ignored another significant characteristic that these countries share.

With just a single exception, all of these countries were targeted for attack by certain top U.S. officials in 2001. In fact, that policy had roots that went back to 1996, 1991, 1980, and even the 1950s…

The fact is that Trump’s action continues policies influenced by people working on behalf of a foreign country, whose goal has been to destabilize and reshape an entire region. This kind of aggressive interventionism focused on “regime change” launches cascading effects that include escalating violence. 4

So begins a recent article by independent journalist, political historian and outspoken activist, Alison Weir. The foreign country she refers to “whose goal has been to destabilize and reshape an entire region” is Israel, of course, and Weir afterwards cites numerous sources including historical documents to back the charge that the ‘war on terror’ was founded on policy dictated not merely by a pro-Israel faction in Washington, but as part of long-standing Zionist strategy. Both these claim are incontrovertible as direct evidence below shows. Carefully evaluating the second claim, however, depends upon better establishing the true relationship between America and Israel; a tricky matter and one I shall come back to.

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The following is an extract taken from an article published by Haaretz in the immediate wake of the invasion codenamed Operation Iraqi Freedom that fourteen years ago unleashed a “shock and awe” campaign to topple Saddam Hussein and to kill and maim more than a million people:

In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in [Washington]: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history. They believe that the right political idea entails a fusion of morality and force, human rights and grit. The philosophical underpinnings of the Washington neoconservatives are the writings of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Edmund Burke. They also admire Winston Churchill and the policy pursued by Ronald Reagan. They tend to read reality in terms of the failure of the 1930s (Munich) versus the success of the 1980s (the fall of the Berlin Wall).

The article aptly entitled “White Man’s Burden” is based around interviews with a few of the aforementioned neo-con protagonists. One is William Kristol, described in the piece as “believed to exercise considerable influence on the president, Vice President Richard Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld… [and] perceived as having been instrumental in getting Washington to launch this all-out campaign against Baghdad.”

Here is a little of what Kristol imparts to journalist Ari Shavit:

What is the war about? I ask. Kristol replies that at one level it is the war that George Bush is talking about: a war against a brutal regime that has in its possession weapons of mass destruction. But at a deeper level it is a greater war, for the shaping of a new Middle East. 5

Another extract reprinted below is taken from a Guardian article that had been published six months previously, with the preparations for the Iraq War already well underway:

The “skittles theory” of the Middle East – that one ball aimed at Iraq can knock down several regimes – has been around for some time on the wilder fringes of politics but has come to the fore in the United States on the back of the “war against terrorism”.

Its roots can be traced, at least in part, to a paper published in 1996 by an Israeli thinktank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. Entitled “A clean break: a new strategy for securing the realm”, it was intended as a political blueprint for the incoming government of Binyamin Netanyahu. As the title indicates, it advised the right-wing Mr Netanyahu to make a complete break with the past by adopting a strategy “based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism …”

Among other things, it suggested that the recently-signed Oslo accords might be dispensed with – “Israel has no obligations under the Oslo agreements if the PLO does not fulfil its obligations” – and that “alternatives to [Yasser] Arafat’s base of power” could be cultivated. “Jordan has ideas on this,” it added.

It also urged Israel to abandon any thought of trading land for peace with the Arabs, which it described as “cultural, economic, political, diplomatic, and military retreat”.

“Our claim to the land – to which we have clung for hope for 2,000 years – is legitimate and noble,” it continued. “Only the unconditional acceptance by Arabs of our rights, especially in their territorial dimension, ‘peace for peace’, is a solid basis for the future.”

The paper set out a plan by which Israel would “shape its strategic environment”, beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad.

With Saddam out of the way and Iraq thus brought under Jordanian Hashemite influence, Jordan and Turkey would form an axis along with Israel to weaken and “roll back” Syria. Jordan, it suggested, could also sort out Lebanon by “weaning” the Shia Muslim population away from Syria and Iran, and re-establishing their former ties with the Shia in the new Hashemite kingdom of Iraq. “Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them”, the paper concluded.6

“The removal of Saddam remains a prize because it could give new security to oil supplies; engage a powerful and secular state in the fight against Sunni extremist terror, open political horizons in the GCC [Gulf Co-operation Council] states, remove a threat to Jordan/Israel, undermine the regional logic on WMD. The major challenge would be managing the regional reintegration of Iraq, without damaging important local relationships. Working for regime change could be a dynamic process of alliance building which could effect climatic change in the Arab-Israeli conflict.” […]

“… two further aims: climatic change in the psychology of regimes in the region, a pre-condition for progress in the Arab-Israel dispute … The problem of WMD is an element in driving for action in Iraq. In turn, this should open prospects for Arab‑Israeli talks, and, beyond, regional work to reduce the WMD inventories which threaten Europe as well.”

— From statements provided to the Chilcot Inquiry by anonymous ‘Secret Intelligence Service officer below the rank of chief’ known only as SIS4 and speculated to be Sir Mark Allen, a former director of MI6/SIS. 7

[bold emphasis added]

The ‘global war on terror’ was instigated on the basis a pack of outright lies. Here is a sample that serves as an aide–mémoire:

Firstly, there never was a labyrinthine cave complex in the Tora Bora mountains infested with Jihadists… and Bin Laden wasn’t hiding there anyway. 8

Secondly, Saddam Hussein was no friend of al-Qaeda but an enemy who “was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime” 9

Lastly (in this extremely fleeting overview) – though Saddam did poison his enemies both during Iraq’s war against neighbours Iran as well as Kurdish and Marsh Arab minorities inside Iraq, the arsenal of WMDs (supplied by the West) were long gone. 10 Along with the concocted false alarm about yellowcake, any threat to the West posed by WMDs was a wholly manufactured fiction.

In fact, it is no longer at issue that the ‘war on terror’ was founded on multiple falsehoods. Nor is there any serious contention that the misinformation was quite deliberately fabricated and promulgated, even though during the lead up to war, this disinformation was consistently reported as factual and well-evidenced by the media. What the majority understood intuitively but our politicians and media generally failed to see is now acknowledged as historical fact. Bush lied. Blair lied. And the intelligence services supplied them with ‘dodgy dossiers’ to support those lies.

This is what Colin Powell said of Iraq in an interview given to CBS in December 2001, not even three months after the September 11th attack:

“Regime change would be in the best interest of the Iraqi people. It is a goal of the United States. But the United Nations’ goal is the inspectors and getting rid of those weapons of mass destruction.” 11

Moreover, in a paper from Tony Blair to George Bush entitled “The War against Terrorism: The Second Phase” also sent in December 2001 and since declassified, we find an overview for possible approaches to terrorist threats again in seven countries: Indonesia, Philippines, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and of course Iraq. Five of these correspond with the seven on Trump’s first travel ban and four on General Wesley Clark’s notorious statement that the US plan was “we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”:

And here is one particularly revealing sentence in the missive from Blair to Bush:

It reads:

If toppling Saddam is a prime objective, it is far easier to do it with Syria and Iran in favour or acquiescing rather than hitting all three at once. 12

But though the details of these foundational myths have since unravelled, justification for the ‘war on terror’ is maintained to this day on the totally fraudulent basis of the original ad hoc justifications. We invade ostensibly to prevent the spread of global terrorism and we bomb to bring ‘freedom and democracy’. For it is as fundamental to twenty-first century subjugation of foreign lands as it was to prior imperialist conquests to appeal to “the white man’s burden” – and the singular difference today rests in the wording: post-modern racism is implicit and undeclared.

Within this story-making there is another facet of today’s racism that is eschewed. The actuality that a small and exceptionally powerful and well-connected neo-con faction has been operating behind the scenes in Washington to bring about regime change in Iraq is widely published, but what is seldom mentioned, is that they were working to promote the interests of a foreign power. The omitted part is discussed in that example of comparatively uncensored journalism published by Haaretz and quoted above. Yet even when the well-attested influence of Israel is discussed, it is rarer again to acknowledge that the ‘war on terror’ serves the anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism of an ultra-Zionist agenda. Brian Whitaker’s Guardian piece, also quoted above, is somewhat exceptional in this regard.

The following is taken from an article written during the Bush years by former CIA analysts Bill and Kathleen Christison who also draw attention the blackout over discussing “dual loyalties” in Washington:

We write articles about the neo-conservatives’ agenda on U.S.-Israeli relations and imply that in the neo-con universe there is little light between the two countries. We talk openly about the Israeli bias in the U.S. media. We make wry jokes about Congress being “Israeli-occupied territory.” Jason Vest in The Nation magazine reported forthrightly that some of the think tanks that hold sway over Bush administration thinking see no difference between U.S. and Israeli national security interests. But we never pronounce the particular words that best describe the real meaning of those observations and wry remarks. It’s time, however, that we say the words out loud and deal with what they really signify.

Dual loyalties. The issue we are dealing with in the Bush administration is dual loyalties — the double allegiance of those myriad officials at high and middle levels who cannot distinguish U.S. interests from Israeli interests, who baldly promote the supposed identity of interests between the United States and Israel, who spent their early careers giving policy advice to right-wing Israeli governments and now give the identical advice to a right-wing U.S. government, and who, one suspects, are so wrapped up in their concern for the fate of Israel that they honestly do not know whether their own passion about advancing the U.S. imperium is motivated primarily by America-first patriotism or is governed first and foremost by a desire to secure Israel’s safety and predominance in the Middle East through the advancement of the U.S. imperium.

“Dual loyalties” has always been one of those red flags posted around the subject of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict, something that induces horrified gasps and rapid heartbeats because of its implication of Jewish disloyalty to the United States and the common assumption that anyone who would speak such a canard is ipso facto an anti-Semite. (We have a Jewish friend who is not bothered by the term in the least, who believes that U.S. and Israeli interests should be identical and sees it as perfectly natural for American Jews to feel as much loyalty to Israel as they do to the United States. But this is clearly not the usual reaction when the subject of dual loyalties arises.)

Their Counterpunch article entitled “The Bush Neocons and Israel” was published in September 2004, and continues:

Although much has been written about the neo-cons who dot the Bush administration, the treatment of their ties to Israel has generally been [treated] very gingerly. Although much has come to light recently about the fact that ridding Iraq both of its leader and of its weapons inventory has been on the neo-con agenda since long before there was a Bush administration, little has been said about the link between this goal and the neo-cons’ overriding desire to provide greater security for Israel. But an examination of the cast of characters in Bush administration policymaking circles reveals a startlingly pervasive network of pro-Israel activists, and an examination of the neo-cons’ voluminous written record shows that Israel comes up constantly as a neo-con reference point, always mentioned with the United States as the beneficiary of a recommended policy, always linked with the United States when national interests are at issue. […]

The neo-con strategy papers half a dozen years ago were dotted with concepts like “redefining Iraq,” “redrawing the map of the Middle East,” “nurturing alternatives to Arafat,” all of which have in recent months become familiar parts of the Bush administration’s diplomatic lingo. Objectives laid out in these papers as important strategic goals for Israel — including the ouster of Saddam Hussein, the strategic transformation of the entire Middle East, the death of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, regime change wherever the U.S. and Israel don’t happen to like the existing government, the abandonment of any effort to forge a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace or even a narrower Palestinian-Israeli peace — have now become, under the guidance of this group of pro-Israel neo-cons, important strategic goals for the United States. The enthusiasm with which senior administration officials like Bush himself, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have adopted strategic themes originally defined for Israel’s guidance — and did so in many cases well before September 11 and the so-called war on terror — testifies to the persuasiveness of a neo-con philosophy focused narrowly on Israel and the pervasiveness of the network throughout policymaking councils. […]

The suggestion that the war with Iraq is being planned at Israel’s behest, or at the instigation of policymakers whose main motivation is trying to create a secure environment for Israel, is strong. Many Israeli analysts believe this.

Given the renewed close alignment of Trump-Bannon with Netanyahu and the ultra-Zionists, the culmination of the same article once again sounds disconcertingly prophetic:

The Armageddon that Christian Zionists seem to be actively promoting and that Israeli loyalists inside the administration have tactically allied themselves with raises the horrifying but very real prospect of an apocalyptic Christian-Islamic war. 13

Embedded above is a talk given by Kathy and Bill Christison on February 19th 2010 at the conference “The United States, Israel and Palestine: What Does Justice Require of US?” at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle, WA. The title of their talk was “The U.S.-Israeli Partnership and the Impact on Palestine”.

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Alison Weir started out as a journalist, but after returning from a solo trip to the Palestinian territories in 2001, she left her job as editor of a weekly newspaper and became an outspoken activist and the founder of If Americans Knew.

Here is Weir delivering an impressive recent presentation entitled “100 Years of Pro-Israel Activism” on Thursday 16th February in Berkeley, California:

Her talk was in three sections. In the first half approximately she reports her own findings based on a meticulous statistical analysis of media bias in the reporting of Israel-Palestine. There afterwards follows a potted history about the origins of Political Zionism and its repercussions for the people of Palestine. And the final fifteen minutes is devoted to Trump’s first executive order banning the entry of Muslims from seven countries – this concluding section is a summarised version of the article quoted above (and returned to below).

Like the Christisons, Weir is unflinching when it comes to laying the blame for the ‘war on terror’, which is in actuality a war on Muslims, at Israel’s door. Appealing solely to evidence recovered from open sources, she is able to put together incontrovertible proof that finds Israel and America guilty as equal partners in the manufacture of the post-9/11 wars with the shared purpose of ‘remaking’ the Middle East. Here is a further extract from her latest article:

Another Ha’aretz article described how some of these individuals, high American officials, gave Israeli leaders tips on how to manage American actions and influence US Congressmen, concluding: “Perle, Feith, and their fellow strategists are walking a fine line between their loyalty to American governments and Israeli interests.”

Ha’aretz reported that the goal was far more than just an invasion of Iraq: “at a deeper level it is a greater war, for the shaping of a new Middle East.” The article said that the war “was being fought to consolidate a new world order.”

“The Iraq war is really the beginning of a gigantic historical experiment…”

We’re now seeing the tragic and violent result of that regime-change experiment. 14

At the risk of alienating her audience, Weir also puts the ongoing neo-con ultra-Zionist strategy of regime change – those ‘seven countries in five years’ as first leaked by General Wesley Clark – within a fuller historical context:

The document, translated by Israel Shahak, called for the dissolution of existing Arab states into smaller states which would, in effect, become Israel’s satellites.

In an analysis of the plan, Shahak pointed out: “[W]hile lip service is paid to the idea of the ‘defense of the West’ from Soviet power, the real aim of the author, and of the present Israeli establishment is clear: To make an Imperial Israel into a world power.”

Shahak noted that Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon planned “to deceive the Americans after he has deceived all the rest.”

Shahak wrote that reshaping the Middle East on behalf of Israel had been discussed since the 1950s: “This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking. Indeed, fragmenting all Arab states into smaller units has been a recurrent theme.”

As Shahak pointed out, this strategy was documented in a book called Israel’s Sacred Terrorism (1980), by Livia Rokach. Drawing on the memoirs of the second Prime Minister of Israel, Rokach’s book described, among other things, a 1954 proposal to execute regime change in Lebanon. 15

I suggest that everyone – both those who deplore the order for humanitarian reasons, and those who defend it out of concern for Americans’ safety – examine the historic context outlined above and the U.S. policies that led to this order.

For decades, Democratic and Republican administrations have enacted largely parallel policies regarding the Middle East and Israel-Palestine. We are seeing the results, and most of us are deeply displeased.

I would submit that both for humanitarian obligations and for security necessities, it is urgent that we find a different way forward.

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Additional: “Is the US Waging Israel’s Wars?”

Many throughout the Muslim world and beyond are asking this question: What are the real reasons behind the US invasion of Iraq and its wish to overthrow the governments of Syria and Iran?

For all their grandiose posturing, in truth, Iraq, Syria and Iran have never posed a direct threat to the US mainland. Put simply, they’re too far away from the neighbourhood. So why would the US be willing to expend so many human lives and so much treasury on changing the regimes of countries it doesn’t like?

Asks award-winning political commentator Linda S. Heard in a piece entitled “Is the US Waging Israel’s Wars?” published in April 2006 also reprinted by Counterpunch.

Heard continues:

A premise, which many in the Arab world believe, should also be dissected. Is the US manipulating and remoulding the area so that Israel can remain the only regional superpower in perpetuity?

This is not as fanciful as one might imagine on first glance. Read the following strangely prophetic segment from an article published in 1982 by the World Zionist Organisation’s publication Kivunim and penned by Oded Yinon, an Israeli journalist with links to the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Yinon’s strategy was based on this premise. In order to survive Israel must become an imperial regional power and must also ensure the break-up of all Arab countries so that the region may be carved up into small ineffectual states unequipped to stand up to Israeli military might.

And she directly quotes part of Oded Yinon’s original strategy:

“The dissolution of Syria and Iraq into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front. Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run, it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel.

“An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and Lebanon.

“In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul and Shiite areas in the South will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north.”

Heard also reviews the situation as it then appeared some twenty-four years on:

The eight-year long Iran-Iraq War that ended in 1988 was responsible for over a million casualties but did not result in Yinon’s desired break-up. Iraq still stood as a strong homogenous entity.

Iraq was, however, severely weakened in 1991 as a result of the Gulf War brought about by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. Still, the country remained unified.

It took the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation to destabilize Iraq and split the country on sectarian lines. Indeed, its new constitution is drawn around a loose federation with partial autonomy for the northern Kurds and the southern Shiites, and the country is now rife with sectarian, religious and ethnic strife. Some say “civil war”.

Turning to Syria, until the March 2003 invasion of Iraq Syria under President Bashar Al-Assad enjoyed reasonably good relations with the West. We should also remember that Syria fought alongside the US-led allies during the Gulf War. Syria also voted, albeit reluctantly, for the UN resolution that oiled the invasion, and was a strong partner in the so-called ‘War on Terror’.

Then, lo and behold, Syria could do no right. Suddenly, it was accused to all kinds of ‘crimes’ from hiding Iraq’s mythical weapons of mass destruction, harbouring insurgents and terrorists, and allowing the free passage of fighters and arms into Iraq.

Heavy pressure was then put on to Damascus to end its de facto occupation of Lebanon following the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and, now the Syrian government is being investigated by the UN, accused of involvement.

Today the US is actively engaged in weakening the Al-Assad government and is supporting opposition parties. If it is successful, experts predict that Syria, like Iraq, will fall victim to sectarianism and internecine conflict.

Ten years on and Syria has indeed “fall[en] victim to sectarianism and internecine conflict”.

Heard finishes off with a brief discussion about how although Yinon’s essay does not focus on Iran, Israel is already leading the charge against its “purported nuclear ambitions”. She concludes:

Back to the question of whether the US is, indeed, waging wars on behalf of Israel. In short, we can’t be certain and we may never know since the Bush White House has sealed its private tapes and papers for 100 years.

There is one thing that we do know. Oded Yinon’s 1982 “Zionist Plan for the Middle East” is in large part taking shape. Is this pure coincidence? Was Yinon a gifted psychic? Perhaps! Alternatively, we in the West are victims of a long-held agenda not of our making and without doubt not in our interests. 16

4 From an article entitled “Trump’s Muslim ban: Israeli strategic plans to ‘remake the Middle East’ from 2001 and before targeted the same countries” written by Alison Weir, published by If Americans Knew on February 4, 2017. http://ifamericaknew.org/history/muslimban.html

[The neo-con] doctrine maintains that the problem with the Middle East is the absence of democracy and of freedom. It follows that the only way to block people like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden is to disseminate democracy and freedom. To change radically the cultural and political dynamics that creates such people. And the way to fight the chaos is to create a new world order that will be based on freedom and human rights — and to be ready to use force in order to consolidate this new world. So that, really, is what the war is about. It is being fought to consolidate a new world order, to create a new Middle East.

There is no evidence of formal links between Iraqi ex-leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda leaders prior to the 2003 war, a US Senate report says.

The finding is contained in a 2005 CIA report released by the Senate’s Intelligence Committee on Friday.

The committee concluded that the CIA had evidence of several instances of contacts between the Iraqi authorities and al-Qaeda throughout the 1990s but that these did not add up to a formal relationship.

It added that the government “did not have a relationship, harbour or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates”.

It said that Iraq and al-Qaeda were ideologically poles apart.

“Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support,” it said.

It is long established that Iraq — with assistance from the U.S. and other Western countries — produced enormous quantities of chemical weapons during its eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s. After Iraq was expelled from Kuwait during the Gulf War in 1991, the United Nations Security Council sent inspectors to ensure that Iraq disclosed and destroyed its entire chemical (and biological and nuclear) weapons programs. Iraq repeatedly said that it had done so, while the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations claimed it was still hiding pre-1991 weaponry.

14 From an article entitled “Trump’s Muslim ban: Israeli strategic plans to ‘remake the Middle East’ from 2001 and before targeted the same countries” written by Alison Weir, published by If Americans Knew on February 4, 2017. http://ifamericaknew.org/history/muslimban.html

15From an article entitled “Trump’s Muslim ban: Israeli strategic plans to ‘remake the Middle East’ from 2001 and before targeted the same countries” written by Alison Weir, published by If Americans Knew on February 4, 2017. http://ifamericaknew.org/history/muslimban.html